Future Canadian Skylines

[caltrane74]

Maybe a mini Tokyo..

with the a Shinjuku at Dundas Square and a Ginza in Yorkville.

And now a massive and sprawling downtown, which is reaching further and further north, and moving west at an unreletanting pace. Within the next 20 years Toronto should be a true 24/7 city.

[Traynor]

The Administrator over at SSP wondered what that skyline view would have looked like ten years ago. So I couldn't resist the challenge.

I had to remove a lot of buildings and then fake or fill in all the missing parts of the extant buildings. Sometimes drawing whole buildings like City Hall. So here is the result:

First that skyline circa 2000:


Next, the present day:


Finally the render circa 2015:

(Original image courtesy interchange42 at UrbanToronto )

[LeftCoaster]

Wow, lots of change, thanks for all the hard work Traynor.

Caltrane, I really want to buy you a plane ticket to Tokyo, just for a little relativity.

[suburbanite]

anyone know why I can't see the pictures of Toronto in the very first post?

[caltrane74]

Spare me the planeticket, Leftcoaster.

I like my balls without the afterglow.

[Metro-One]

I would actually like to see a future render of Metrotown (looking south from the Brentwood area, which is its best vantage point), which is likely to experience the most dramatic change in metro Vancouver over the next 5 years (the 2 tallest are abut to start construction, and they will be the new tallest by a wide margin, also 2 other towers that rival the current tallest are also u/c)

Awesome renders of Toronto.

[steveve]

TRAYNOR!!!! MIND BLOWIN stuff! i was like "WHAT? how did u get a shot from the exact same angle 10 years ago". that is a really really really really good photoshop going back in time (which is even harder), i couldn't even tell how you did it.

worship spam:

[Gresto]

Originally Posted by steveve

i couldn't even tell how you did it.

Extract the sky colour using the eye-dropper tool and use it to block out all buildings built in the last ten years.
Anyway, fantastic job on all the renders, Traynor. A lot of work.

[Traynor]

^Not even close. I don't use Photoshop to do the drawing. I draw it all by hand and I use MS Paint. I only know how to use the blur and shading features on PS, so I just use it to smooth out some lines once I've drawn everything in Paint.

I was born long before the computer age and I am used to drawing with a pencil.

[caltrane74]

Guy, I thought you were 40 something, not 70 something..

You grew up with Atari, Comedore 64, and Apple MacIntosh. Stop making me dread the next 10 to 15 years of my life.


Amazing Renderings nonetheless!!!

[Traynor]

When I was Steveve's age, we bought our first VCR (a Betamax), Microwaves were only widely available a couple of years before. It was another year before TD would introduce their first automated teller called the Green Machine. Gas was still sold by the gallon but just changing to liters (the first station I saw selling in liters, was posted as 19.6 cents a liter... That's not a typo... It was actually less than 20 cents a liter) My dad bought us the latest video-based gaming system called Pong. it had three selections of game-play...tennis, hockey and ping pong (the only difference was the size of the "paddle" and the hole for the "net"

... and a computer was an odd thing in my high school Business classroom that they used to produce dot matrix pictures of hearts and initials for you and your girlfriend.

[roccerfeller]

Wow, one of the best comparison pics i've ever seen...Good job man!

[ToxiK]

Great job Traynor. We can see the speed of the evolution of Toronto's skyline.

[Dwils01]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

anyone know why I can't see the pictures of Toronto in the very first post?

Maldive probably removed the picture from the site where it was originally located.

[caltrane74]

Look at this!!

[SpikePhanta]

I'm liking what Toronto is going to look like!

[Gresto]

Originally Posted by Traynor

^Not even close. I don't use Photoshop to do the drawing. I draw it all by hand and I use MS Paint. I only know how to use the blur and shading features on PS, so I just use it to smooth out some lines once I've drawn everything in Paint.

I am referring to MS Paint. I don't have Photoshop either. There is an eyedropper tool in Paint, which you can use, for instance, to "extract" from a photo the exact colour of the sky surrounding the buildings. It's a major time saver.

Nice gif showing all three renders/photos, caltrane.

[Traynor]

Yeah, but the colour of the sky is graded and not ONE colour, so the eyedropper tool doesn't work like that.

[steveve]

Originally Posted by Traynor

When I was Steveve's age, we bought our first VCR (a Betamax), Microwaves were only widely available a couple of years before. It was another year before TD would introduce their first automated teller called the Green Machine. Gas was still sold by the gallon but just changing to liters (the first station I saw selling in liters, was posted as 19.6 cents a liter... That's not a typo... It was actually less than 20 cents a liter) My dad bought us the latest video-based gaming system called Pong. it had three selections of game-play...tennis, hockey and ping pong (the only difference was the size of the "paddle" and the hole for the "net"

... and a computer was an odd thing in my high school Business classroom that they used to produce dot matrix pictures of hearts and initials for you and your girlfriend.

haha... nice....
what scares me is how old some of these skyscrapers are (in the cbd), yet they're still the king(s) of the skyline. i mean, commerce court, td centre, first canadian place, they're ancient! i'll tell you that commerce court west still looks really good today, even with its age, (scotia plaza as well though it's not as old), td centre is okay too,

[caltrane74]

If you look at the pictures, most of the more major development from here on in, will happen in Midtown and Yorkville Areas. I guess this is where the land is the most valuable, and most scarce.